Tau Students Bar Kahane and Followers from Campus

An attempt by Rabbi Meir Kahane and several other members of his extremist Kach Party to enter the Tel Aviv University campus Thursday was blocked by students who also scuffled with Arab fellow students when some of the latter shouted pro-PLO slogans.

Student Union chairman David Berman, who led the anti-Kahane demonstration, told reporters afterwards that “We showed Kahane that Tel Aviv University is a bastion of democracy and that he can’t come in.”

But the only arrests made in the melee were of three Arab students. One of them, Mohammed Shakif, deputy chairman of the Student Union, was detained for allegedly insulting a policeman. As police led them away, the Arabs were spat upon by members of the Kahane group who departed unmolested.

The Kach group arrived at the main entrance to the campus in a van and two cars. Several dozen students were assembled at a nearby dormitory with loudspeakers and placards denouncing Kach’s racist policies. The students blocked the entrance, shouting “We won’t let the fascists through.” The Kach group shouted, “It’s a Jewish homeland” and “PLO go home.”

The small police force on hand did not intervene until the shouting turned into a shoving match and some PLO slogans were heard.

Kahane claimed he went to the campus as a Knesset member to check the nature of the relationship between Jewish and Arab students.